AMD Athlon 3000G

Not everyone needs a thousand cores.

And now for something completely different. Much of this month’s APC is spent covering the high end desktop processors. The simple truth is that not everyone needs a huge core count or high powered performance. Some folks just want a cheap and cheerful but still fully functional PC for general tasks. Enter the AMD Athlon 3000G. At $79 dollars it offers tremendous value for a basic PC.

The Athlon 3000G utilises older 1st generation Zen CPU cores, built on the 14nm process. It’s a two-core/ four-thread CPU with a 3.50 GHz clock speed. The 3000G doesn’t have a boost clock, so 3.5GHz is the maximum it will run at. Perhaps the most interesting feature is the inclusion of an unlocked clock multiplier, making it a rather simple matter to gain some free performance with little effort. The 3000G comes with a basic cooler that’s rated for up to 65W. Our test sample didn’t come with this cooler, but since the 3000G has an impressive 35W TDP, it should remain quiet under all operating conditions. If you want to overclock it, an air cooler that’s a bit beefier might be appropriate.

The 3000G includes a heavily cut down variant of AMD’s Vega IGP. It’s no match for any 2019 spec dedicated graphics card but is capable enough for simple 720p gaming with low details. By this we mean older games. Current AAA games are simply too demanding to run on a 3000G, but if you’re more interested in browser gaming or something basic like a bit of CS:GO, it will do the job. Vega has a good set of multimedia capabilities making the 3000G a very attractive media server option.

As you can see in the test results, the 3000G isn’t aimed at users who need performance. Its single thread performance isn’t too bad but it’s pretty slow under heavily threaded loads. We compared the 3000G to a Ryzen 3 3200G which is a genuine quad core with more powerful graphics. It trounces the 3000G, but remember its close enough to double the price with double the TDP. They aren’t really comparable.

We simply couldn’t let the 3000G go without trying to overclock it. We hoped to get over 4GHz fairly easily but found that full stability at 4GHz was difficult to achieve without moving over 1.4v. With a bit of time and effort, it should be possible. Our benchmarks ran at 3.95GHz at 1.4v. Not a bad free performance bump.

The Athlon 3000G is certainly not a speed demon processor. What’s important to remember is its $79 price. At that level it’s suddenly possible to build a dirt cheap budget PC that provides a computing experience you just can’t get from a tablet or phone. Pair it with a budget A320 motherboard and 8GB of RAM and it’s the kind of thing that a huge chunk of users will find perfectly adequate. Note that the A320 chipset doesn’t support overclocking, so if you want to overclock the 3000G, you’ll need something like a B350 or B450 motherboard. Just make sure your board of choice has an updated BIOS to support the 3000G.

Verdict

The 3000G won’t win any speed records, but when it comes to bang for buck, it’s hard to beat.

“We simply couldn’t let the 3000G go without trying to overclock it. ”